LONDON.- On a fine, bright morning last Friday, just like so many other fine, bright mornings, Gary Pickles took a walk.

Pickles, a ranger who works at Northumberland National Park in England, just south of the Scottish border, was inspecting a route that wends past Hadrian’s Wall, constructed by the Roman army in the second century. He walked past the cleft where the Sycamore Gap tree had famously jutted out into the landscape before it was illegally cut down last year, and he bent down to its stump.

Astonishingly, improbably, there were eight shoots where the tree once stood. Eight signs of life.

“It was like when you see an old friend,” said Pickles, 54. “‘Oh, you’re back, are you?’”

Pickles’ discovery, announced Thursday by the park and the National Trust, a British conservation society, is a step toward national healing. The felling of the tree in September shocked and horrified many British people. Why would anyone ax something so lovely, so alive?

“People felt like their landscape — their heritage — was violated,” said Rob Collins, a professor at Newcastle University who is a specialist in Hadrian’s Wall archaeology.

Police conducted a swift investigation, and a legal process is underway: Two men were charged in April in connection to the felling. They are set to appear in court this month, the BBC reported.

But for many people, the arrests have done little to heal the void at the ancient wall. Like the flames that destroyed the Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019, the vandals’ chain saw had cut through a sacred piece of national heritage. And the wall yawns with the absence of the tree, almost like an empty seat at a holiday table.

“People in the northeast of England, in Northumberland, have almost taken it as a personal affront,” said Andrew Poad, general manager at Hadrian’s Wall, which is partly managed by the National Trust. Tradespeople used the tree in their logos; friends chatted over Sycamore Gap ale, brewed nearby. “It almost felt like the tree was part of them.”

For people in Britain and tree lovers across the world, these fragile shoots are poetic justice.

“It’s nature’s response to what’s happened,” Poad said.

He visited the tree Thursday morning and counted 12 shoots: a really good sign.

“We said, at the time, it was like having a bereavement,” he said of the felling. “Well, this feels like we’ve had a baby.”

The Sycamore Gap tree, a beloved way marker, had grown for centuries along Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was built after Roman Emperor Hadrian visited Britain in A.D. 122. It shot to cultural prominence in the 1990s after it was featured in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” It was voted Tree of the Year in 2016 in the Woodland Trust competition.

Under its leaves, untold numbers of nervous kneelers proposed, sliding engagement rings onto shaking, giddy fingers, starting a life together. People took wedding photos, graduation photos. And family after family once gathered near its roots to scatter the ashes of loved ones, saying goodbye.

“It’s almost like a national monument,” said Andy Jasper, director of gardens and parklands for the National Trust.

As the tree lay on its side last year, scientists rushed to gather its seeds and take cuttings from it. Even if the tree was gone, they hoped they could rescue some of its genetic material.

“The seedlings that we’ve got are children of the tree, so they’re actually genetically slightly different,” Jasper said. The new growth at the site bears even more meaning, he said. “It is actually that tree, regenerating itself.”

When Pickles saw the sprouts on his morning walk, he was delighted but careful.

So he quickly took a few photos and left to tell his team.

“I didn’t want to be seen snapping away, in case people’s attention was drawn to it,” he said.

Scientists and park officials are working to protect the vulnerable sprouts. An expanded fence is in place to keep animals away. (“This sort of growth is often like a tray of Ferrero Rocher for deer,” Jasper said.)

Officials are also asking visitors to stay away.

“We really need to treat it with kid gloves for the next few months and years, potentially,” Poad said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.